Why do print_r and var_dump execute before echo

Question

I\'m calling either var_dump() or print_r() on an array that has one value in an echo statement:

echo \"
<         


        

Answer 1

var_dump doesn't return anything, it does its own printing. It evaluates first, since PHP can't concatenate an expression of which it doesn't know the value. You probably want:

echo "

testArray is ==> ";
var_dump($testArray);
echo " <===

";

instead. Print the start, the middle, then the end.